01 November 2002
The government has ditched business services firm Capita as its partner to develop a successor to the crisis-hit individual learning accounts.
The Department for Education and Skills announced last week that a wide-ranging review of adult education was being launched and it would not make sense to develop the successor scheme until the review had been completed.
A spokeswoman announced the decision on the same day as the National Audit Office published its fiercely critical report on ILAs, which found a catalogue of mistakes and shortcomings.
ILAs, which the government set up to subsidise the cost of courses for adult learners, had to be shut down last November after being widely abused by unscrupulous training providers.
'We have agreed with Capita that our joint work with them on a successor scheme is now complete,' the spokeswoman said.
A source close to the DfES later told Public Finance that the decision had been prompted by the NAO's report. 'Capita was sacked,' the source added.
Capita designed and implemented ILAs and had been expected to run the successor scheme. It still had three more years of its original contract left to run. But the firm will now have to submit a bid if it wants to compete for the new contract.
Capita flatly denied it had been sacked. It said: 'Reports that the contract with the DfES has been terminated as a result of the NAO report on ILAs are unfounded.'
PFnov2002
